


Courage of Stars

by charlottelennox



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 21:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14458140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottelennox/pseuds/charlottelennox
Summary: INFINITY WAR SPOILERS.______In the wake of Thanos's destruction of what's left of Asgard, Loki must make a choice. A few stolen moments with Thor, and Loki's thoughts during the opening scene.





	Courage of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be safe, I want to reiterate that this story has spoilers for Infinity War. 
> 
> Title comes from the song "Saturn" by Sleeping At Last. 
> 
> In the first scene, when the Hulk attacks, Loki knocks Thor out of the way and both disappear for a few minutes. This is my interpretation of what happened during the time they were off-screen, along with my personal headcanon that Loki fully intended to die.
> 
> Comments make my days, especially in the wake of my broken Loki heart. So if you like it, let me know, yeah? <3 <3 <3

_It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves._ \- William Shakespeare

* * *

Loki has never been more sure of anything than he is sure of this: Thanos will win, and Loki will not get out of this alive.

 For six years, the Titan has haunted his nightmares, his thoughts. He is the madness that splintered Loki’s mind and the mania that fueled his twisted rage on Midgard, on Thor, on the universe at large. At the heart of it all, Loki had been waiting for his own reckoning – for the day fate would intervene in Loki’s mad, cheating sprint against death, against the recompense that the Other promised if Loki failed the Titan.

It is here. _He_ is here. He speaks as if he reads Loki’s mind. “Dread it, run from it … destiny arrives, all the same,” Thanos says. He is dragging Thor by his collar – Thor, who had so recently summoned the force of a thousand lightning blasts through his veins and decimated Hela’s undead army without breaking a sweat, is now limp as a ragdoll, weak groans his only protest at Thanos’s grasp.

There is a choice, Thanos offers – his brother, or the Tesseract, and a ghost of a smile flickers across Loki’s lips. There is no choice, and they both know it, but he plays his part regardless. He is the betrayer, the heartless wretch. “Kill away,” he says, voice as careless as a wave of his hand. He feels a momentary satisfaction when surprise flickers across Thanos’s face, for being taken by surprise is not something the Titan is used to.

Loki still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

He watches as long as he can bear it, Thanos pressing the full power of the purple gem into Thor’s skull as Thor screams in agony. His screams pierce Loki’s veins and he can feel panic swelling in the back of his throat, pressing forth until it bursts from him in a sob. “All right, stop!” he shouts.

And Thanos smiles. 

The glowing purple light shrinks back into the gem. Loki closes his eyes, dragging air into his lungs as Thor grasps out, “We don’t have the Tesseract. It was destroyed on Asgard.”

Loki looks up at Thanos, whose gaze probes back at him as if Thor has not spoken. _Oh, brother,_ Loki thinks as he extends a hand, _I am truly sorry._ He is unable to look anywhere but at the ground as he calls forward the Tesseract. It shimmers out of the interdimensional pocket where he’d stashed it as he fled Asgard’s vault, Surtur roaring to fiery life in his wake. If he had known just how quickly it would draw the Titan, he would have let it burn.

He lies, even to himself. Once his eyes had set upon the Tesseract, he’d allowed its pull to draw him in. It fueled his own greed for power and he knows there is no universe in which he would have left it behind. It was ever so easy to succumb to his basic instinct to manipulate the choices in front of him so that he could have it all. 

For a long time, Loki had occupied the space between destruction and redemption. He hovered in the grey, neutral space where his need for control was balanced with his general contentment – if boredom – with hiding in plain sight on Odin’s throne. He’d become complacent, _ambivalent,_ and in that sacred space he’d not had to think too closely on the choices that had brought him there.

That space had been shattered with his ruse exposed and Hela’s emergence. Since then, it had been a downward tumble, end over end, in a fall that led him back to the edge of the looking glass, beyond which lay all of the selfish impulse inside of him. It was the impulse to create chaos, a desire for power that he could not help but pursue, even as he knew that road only ended with a loss of all power completely. Loki is a tapestry of inconsistency, woven together by motivations that changed from one moment to the next.

This is where it has led. He cannot justify it; the blame resting solely on Loki’s shoulders is reflected in Thor’s weary resignation. “You truly are the worst brother,” Thor sighs, and he is not wrong.

 _Yes, I am,_ Loki thinks, _but this is not over yet._ He moves, walking up to Thanos as he holds the Tesseract up in surrender. His eyes do not leave Thor’s face. “I assure you, brother,” he says, “the sun will shine on us again.” 

Thor does not respond, but Thanos chuckles. “Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian.”

“Well, for one thing, I’m not Asgardian,” Loki replies, finally tearing his gaze away from Thor to look up at Thanos. He is directly in front of him now, so close the hair on the back of his neck stands up and his heart thuds in his ears. “And for another … we have a Hulk.”

Another ace in the hole. The Hulk leaps forward with a deafening roar, tackling Thanos while Loki drops the Tesseract and springs for Thor, shoving him out of the way of the fight. The brothers roll, collapsing in a heap of limbs and panting breaths, while the Hulk draws Thanos in the opposite direction, matching him blow for blow. One might think the Hulk will keep the upper hand, but Loki knows the distraction has brought them only a few precious moments.

Thor can barely keep his eye open. Loki pushes himself up, balancing on his knees as he pulls Thor toward him. He has never seen his brother so broken and beaten. Blood drips from his mouth as he grits his teeth, his breath coming in short gasps. Seeing Thor like this terrifies Loki. “I’m sorry, brother,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to Thor’s. The tears he has been fighting leak from his eyes and burn. His apology is worthless, but he must give it anyway. “I’m sorry.”

Thor flinches, meeting Loki’s gaze. “Oh, Loki.” There is no anger in his voice, but nor is there forgiveness. They both know Loki’s actions have wrought the miserable chaos around them.

“Odin said,” Loki murmurs, “that wherever I go, there is war, ruin, and death. He was right. I am only sorry, brother, that I have cost such a dear price now.”

“We can still beat this,” Thor replies, now struggling to sit up. Loki leans back on his haunches, arm at Thor’s elbow. They are paid no attention. Maw insists the Black Order let Thanos have his fun; they simply watch as Thanos and the Hulk fight and growl and crash. “He has the Tesseract now. We can-“ 

Loki is shaking his head, silencing Thor’s plan before it even begins. “No, Thor. Not this time.” Thor would lose his life for trying. As for Loki … either he will be killed, or he will be captured, and of the two options, death is without question the sweeter choice. If he falls to Thanos’s grasp, the stars will collapse under the weight of Loki’s spilled blood. He knows what it is to be tortured at Thanos’s hand and he will not submit to it again. He will _not_.

“He will not stop,” Loki continues, “until he has all of the stones.” During his time spent in Thanos’s company, he came to know many things about the Titan. One of them is that the Titan would always prevail. He does not accept failure as a stopping point, only a setback to work around. Thanos will win, and Loki will die, and there is no fixing either.

“We cannot simply surrender,” Thor protests weakly. He is clutching his ribs, his breathing ragged as if every word aches. Surrender, Loki thinks, is possibly the only thing in the universe his brother truly fears.

“There is a great deal of freedom,” Loki replies, “in having nothing left to lose.”

“What does that mean?”

Loki’s hands are shaking, and he reaches for Thor’s. He laces their fingers together and squeezes. He squeezes tight, as much to reassure himself as Thor. “It means I’m going to make it right,” he says, and then he lets go and climbs to his feet. Before Thor can respond, Loki cloaks himself in an invisibility spell, because all he can do at this moment is wait for the time to move. He cannot, of course, stop Thanos or make up for the Tesseract. He cannot right the tragedy that has befallen them, the immense loss of the home they’d fought so hard to save.

But as he watches Thanos lifting the Hulk above his head before slamming him hard into the ground, Loki thinks that he can make right his betrayal while avoiding the torture that awaits him at Thanos’s hand. The trickster god always has a plan to ensure his own self-preservation, though this time, in saving himself, he must be sure to die. Loki cannot help but smile at the irony of it.

The Hulk does not get up from Thanos’s blow. Thor has gotten up and is rushing at Thanos, wielding a spear he’s picked up from somewhere. It might as well be a gnat; Thanos swats the spear and Thor aside and the spear clatters down while Thor goes flying. Maw flicks a hand and a crude, caged suit is built up around Thor, pinning him, immobile, in place.

Time speeds up and time slows down. Loki watches the scene play out in front of him: Heimdall calling the bifrost to hurl the Hulk to Earth, Thor’s scream as Thanos pierces Heimdall through the heart, Maw gagging Thor’s mouth while Thanos crushes the Tesseract and places the space stone in the gauntlet. The energy from the stone ripples and washes over them, and Loki watches all of it with his heart in his throat because he is afraid.

It is a strange revelation. Fear pulses through his blood and beats in his chest. It is a sensation Loki has grown unfamiliar with, over time. He has forgotten what it is to feel terror, the kind of terror that freezes the bones.

As he drops the invisibility spell and steps forward, calling Thanos’s attention to himself with an offer to guide the Black Order on Earth, an offer he knows Thanos will never accept, he feels unescapably, undeniably _alive_ with the fear that courses through him. It is electricity dancing on his skin, it is a hand twisting his gut into knots, it is bile that rises in his throat and tears that blur his vision. 

“I, Loki,” he says, “prince of Asgard …. Odin’s son.” Here, he pauses and he turns to Thor, sorrowful apology emanating from his last look at his brother. The only saving grace in his entire miserable life is that he’s had Thor to live it with him. Loki’s greatest regret, in that moment, is that he has wasted so much time despising Thor when he should have loved him most.

Loki forces himself to look away, focusing on Thanos once again. “The rightful king of Jotunheim,” he continues, “and god of Mischief … do hereby pledge to you my _undying_ fidelity.” His voice trembles on the last words, and as he bows his head, he has a moment to draw in a breath, to close his eyes against the tears.

The silence around him is deafening. Loki swallows hard, and then he moves. Quick as lightning, he thrusts forward with the dagger he has conjured behind his back, aiming directly for Thanos’s throat.

Even if he succeeds, the children of Thanos will not show mercy. It does not matter; he does not succeed. With the aid of the space stone, Thanos stops Loki’s arm in place, the dagger inches away from his throat. “Undying,” Thanos says thoughtfully. He grasps Loki’s wrist and Loki winces as Thanos squeezes and wrenches the dagger away. “You should choose your words more carefully.”

Before Loki can reply, Thanos’s fist is closing around his neck. As if he is nothing at all, Loki is lifted from the ground in Thanos’s grasp, fingers closing around Loki’s windpipe to cut off his air. 

Even when the mind has made the decision to die, the body will protest. Loki has learned this lesson twice over, when fate intervened on his prior attempts to end his own life. Falling from the bifrost, so long ago now, should have destroyed him but it had only delivered him to a different kind of suffering, the kind that came from torment and madness and subjugation.

On Svartalfheim, he had not tried to end his life so much as he had carelessly put it in harm’s way, yet that had not worked, either. His own magic had saved him without his prompting, _seiðr_ flowing through his near-lifeless body to heal the mortal wound. The body possessed an innate sense of self-preservation that would struggle until the end against the inevitable.

Loki feels it now. He claws at Thanos’s grip. His legs dangle in mid-air and he kicks furiously, desperately trying to gasp for air. He can feel his lungs growing corrupted as they empty of air and he cannot refill them and it _hurts_. Thanos only watches, the tiniest smile playing on his lips as if Loki’s pitiful struggle amuses him. It is sick, Loki thinks, how much pleasure Thanos is getting from this. His only happiness is in causing others to suffer, and Loki hates it in Thanos as much as he’s despised the same quality in himself. 

“You,” he gasps at Thanos, “will _never_ … be a god.”

By this time, he has almost stopped struggling completely. The last thing he sees is Thanos’s smile grow even more amused, and the last thing he hears is the crunching of bones as Thanos squeezes tight. 

Loki’s world goes dark.

The aftermath is strange. The body has given up at long last, and the mind is at peace, yet it is still conscious, still aware, and Loki had not expected that. If he still had a heart, it would pound. He feels weightless, disembodied, and yet when he looks down, he still has a body. Or, at the least, the illusion of one.

Slowly, light begins to filter through the darkness. The world around him shifts. He is not on the destruction of the Asgardian ship, but standing in a garden, the most beautiful garden he has ever seen. Sunlight begins at the tips of his boots and spreads along the lush grass, rolling forward in a golden haze that runs for the trees, for the sky, for the mountains in the distance. He hears the sound of rushing water, smells the sweet scent of honey and fruit trees. 

“Loki,” his mother calls. 

Loki looks up and he sees her, walking toward him with an outstretched hand. Loki does not even realize he is crying as he takes her hand, pressing her fingers to his lips. “Is this Valhalla?” he asks, looking up at her.

His mother simply smiles, brushing his tears away with her fingertips. “You are home, my son,” she replies. “Come.”

Loki steps forward, and then falters. “Thor …”

“We will wait for him together,” Frigga assures him, “here in the sun.”

 _Oh, brother,_ Loki thinks as he moves again, hand-in-hand with Frigga as she leads him home. _You will love it here. The sun has never shone so bright._

 

* * *

 

 


End file.
